CORNERSTONES

OF INFORMATION WARFARE

FOREWORD

As information systems permeate our military and civilian lives, we are
crossing a new frontier - the Information Age. it will define the 21 st
century and influence all we do as an air force. Information Warfare has
become central to the way nations fight wars, and will be critical to Air
Force operations in the 21 st century. This means, of course, that today
we must invest in our people, planning, equipment, and research so our
ambitions can become reality. We will involve every Air Force person in
this effort, generating a wave of momentum that will carry us into the
next millennium.

Information Warfare is not the exclusive domain of the Air Force, or any
other service. information technology advances will make dramatic changes
in how this nation fights wars in the future. They will allow a
commander's vision and view of the battlespace to be shared at the lowest
level. Because of this, every practitioner of the profession of arms has
a responsibility to understand the impact of information warfare on their
service. From our unique perspectives as soldier, sailor, marine, or
airman, we can then forge a common understanding of how to use information
warfare to enhance joint warfighting capabilities.

Ronald R. Fogleman

Sheila E. Widnall

General, USAF

Secretary of the Air Force

Chief of Staff

CORNERSTONES OF INFORMATION WARFARE

The competition for information is as old as human conflict. it is
virtually a defining characteristic of humanity. Nations, corporations,
and individuals each seek to increase and protect their own store of
information while trying to limit and penetrate the adversary's. Since
around 1970, there have been extraordinary improvements in the technical
means of collecting, storing, analyzing, and transmitting information.
Reams have been written about the impact of this technical revolution on
the conduct of war, particularly since DESERT STORM. However, most of the
literature focuses primarily on technical developments, not on how these
developments impact doctrine.

This paper will pose questions important to Air Force policy makers and
provide answers firmly grounded on concise definitions, institutional
experience, and doctrinal concepts. In the process, it will clarify why
the competition for information, which predates the dawn of history, is
suddenly a riveting national security topic. Closer to home, this paper
will also describe how Air Force doctrine should evolve to accommodate
information warfare. The ultimate goal is a sound foundation on which to
base the inevitable changes in organizing, training, equipping, and
employing military forces and capabilities.

WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT INFORMATION NOW?

Because there is a technological revolution' sweeping through information
systems and their integration into our daily lives leading to the term
'Information Age.' information-related technologies concentrate data,
vastly increase the rate at which we process and transmit data, and
intimately couple the results into virtually every aspect of our lives.
The Information Age is also transforming all military operations by
providing commanders with information unprecedented in quantity and
quality (2). The commander with
the
advantage in observing the battlespace, analyzing events, and distributing
information possesses a powerful, if not decisive, lever over the
adversary.

Before continuing, we must distinguish between information age
warfare and information
warfare. We make this distinction because much of the literature
treats information warfare and
advances in information technology synonymously. Information age warfare
uses information technology as
a tool to impart our combat operations with unprecedented economies of
time and force (3). Ultimately,
information age warfare will affect all combat operations. In
contrast, information warfare, the point of
this paper, views information itself as a separate realm, potent weapon,
and lucrative target. Information,
as we will show below, is technology independent. However, information
age technology is turning a
theoretical possibility into fact: directly (4) manipulating the adversary's
information. This is the driving force behind this paper.

WHAT IS INFORMATION?

This question is elementary, but pivotal. It is impossible to discuss
information warfare meaningfully without rigorously defining the central
concept: information.

Information derives from phenomena. Phenomena, observable facts or
events, are everything that happens around us. Phenomena must be
perceived and interpreted to become information. Information, then, is
the result of two things: perceived phenomena (data) and the instructions
required to interpret that data and give it meaning.

This distinction is important, and easily encompassed by a familiar
paradox: If a tree falls, but no one was around to hear it, did it make a
noise? The falling tree caused pressure waves in the atmosphere, a
phenomenon. Noise, the information denoting a falling tree, occurs when
someone's ear detects the pressure waves, creating data, and the brain's
instructions manipulate that data into the sound recognizable as a falling
tree. Within that person's context, there is no falling tree until the
person hears (or sees) it.

Phenomena become information through observation and analysis. Therefore,
information is an abstraction of phenomena. Information is the result of
our perceptions and interpretations, regardless of the means. As falling
trees make clear, to define information requires only two characteristics:

Information:data and instructions.

Note that the definition for information is absolutely distinct from
technology. However, what we can do with information, and how fast we can
do it, is very dependent on technology. Technology dramatically enhances
our observational means, expands and concentrates data storage, and
accelerates instruction processing. We use the following term to
encompass the technology-dependent elements associated with information:

For example, the system that tells a machine to stamp eighty hubcaps is
performing an information function. The sheet metal press stamping those
hubcaps is not.

WHAT ARE SOME MILITARY INFORMATION FUNCTIONS?

Quality information is the counter to the fog of war. As mentioned
earlier, the commander with better information holds a powerful advantage
over his adversary. Military operations make special demands on
information functions in seeking to give the commander an information
advantage.

Surveillance and reconnaissance are our powers of observation.
Intelligence and weather analysis are the bases for orienting
observations. We use those bases to form an Air Tasking Order, which
command and control operations execute and monitor in directing the
conflict. Precision navigation enhances mission performance. Together,
these are the kinds of military information functions that enhance all
military operations. Collectively, we use the term military information
functions to describe force enhancing information functions.

Military Information Function:any information function
supporting and enhancing the employment of military forces.

This definition serves to delineate militarily important information
functions from the total universe of information functions.

WHAT IS INFORMATION WARFARE?

At the grand strategy level, nations seek to acquire, exploit, and protect
information in support of their
objectives. This exploitation and protection can occur in the economic,
political, or military arenas.
Knowledge of the adversary's information is a means to enhance our own
capabilities, degrade or counteract
enemy capabilities, and protect our own assets, including our own
information. This is not new. The struggle
to discover and exploit information started the first time one group of
people tried to gain advantage over
another.

Information warfare consists of targeting the enemy's information and
information functions, while
protecting our own, with the intent of degrading his will or capability to
fight (5). Drawing on the
definitions of information and information functions, we define
information warfare as:

Information Warfare:any action to deny, exploit, corrupt, or
destroy the enemy's information
and its functions; protecting ourselves against those actions; and
exploiting our own military information
functions (6).

This definition is the basis for the following assertions:

Information warfare is any attack against an information function,
regardless of the means.Bombing a
telephone switching facility is information warfare. So is destroying the
switching facility's software.

Information warfare is any action to protect our information functions,
regardless of the means. Hardening
and defending the switching facility against air attack is information
warfare. So is using an anti-virus
program to protect the facility's software.

Information warfare is a means, not an end, in precisely the same manner
that air warfare is a means, not an
end. We may use information warfare as a means to conduct strategic
attack and interdiction, for example,
just as we may use air warfare to conduct strategic attack and
interdiction.

Militaries have always tried to gain or affect the information required
for an adversary to effectively employ forces. Past strategies typically
relied on measures such as feints and deception to influence decisions by
affecting the decision maker's perceptions. Because these strategies
influenced information through the perception process, they attacked the
enemy's information indirectly. That is, for deception to be effective,
the enemy had to do three things:

observe the deception,

analyze the deception as reality, and

act upon the deception according to the deceiver's goals.

However, modern means of performing information functions give information
added vulnerability: direct
access and manipulation (7). Modern
technology now permits an adversary to change or create information
without relying on observation and interpretation. Here is a short list
of modem information system
characteristics creating this vulnerability: concentrated storage, access
speed, widespread information
transmission, and the increased capacity for information systems to direct
actions autonomously. Intelligent
security measures can reduce, but not eliminate, this vulnerability; their
absence makes it glaring.

Militaries are not inclined to trust their success to the fortunes of war.
So we must direct our information warfare efforts to more than just
targeting an adversary's information: we must also defend our own
information, and all its operations. The Air Force depends heavily upon
military information functions, making us vulnerable to information
warfare. The integrity of our military information functions, as well as
the information itself, bears heavily and directly on the success of our
military operations.

Military Deceptionmisleads the enemy about our capabilities or
intentions (9).

Physical Destructioncan do information warfare by affecting
information system elements through the conversion of stored energy to
destructive power. The means of physical attack range from conventional
bombs to electromagnetic pulse weapons.

Security Measuresseek to keep the adversary from learning about
our military capabilities and intentions (10).

The Information Age has provided new and practical means to deny, exploit,
corrupt, or destroy information (11), as
well as the vulnerabilities to make those attacks possible. Air Force
doctrine does not yet acknowledge or define these assaults on information,
which we call Information Attack.

Information Attack: directly corrupting (12) information without visibly
changing the physical entity within which it resides.

Information attack, constrained by the definition of information, is
limited to directly altering data or instructions. It is, therefore, just
another means of conducting information warfare, one whose immediate
effects do not include visible changes to the entity within which the
information resides. That is to say, after being subjected to information
attack, an information function is indistinguishable from its original
state except through inspecting its data or instructions (13).

HOW IS INFORMATION ATTACK DIFFERENT?

As previously described, there are two ways to influence the adversary's
information
functions: indirectly and directly.

Indirect information warfare affects information by creating phenomena,
which the adversary will
perceive, interpret, and act upon. Military deception, physical attack,
and OPSEC traditionally achieved
their ends indirectly (14). For
example,
the goal of deception is to cause the adversary to make incorrect
decisions; deception does this by creating an apparent reality.
Generally, this entails creating phenomena
for the enemy to observer Success, however, depends on several conditional
events: the adversary actually
observes the phenomenon, thereby turning it into data; analyzes it into
the desired information; and acts
upon the information in the desired manner.

Direct information warfare affects information through altering its
components without relying on the adversary's powers of perception or
interpretation. Information attack acts directly upon the adversary's
information. Since nearly all modem information functions are themselves
controlled by information, information attack may be directed against most
information functions.

Direct information warfare, the point of information attack, acts on the
adversary's information without
relying on the adversary's collection, analysis, or decision functions.
It can short circuit the OODA loop (15)
through creating observations and skewing orientation, or decapitate it by
imposing decisions and causing
actions.

A short illustration will serve to demonstrate the difference between
indirect and direct information warfare applications:

Our goal, using military deception, is to make the adversary think there
is a wing of combat aircraft where, in fact, there is none, and act on
that information in a manner benefiting our operations.

Indirect information warfare: Using military deception, we could
construct fake runways and parking areas, and generate enough other
activities to present a convincing image. We rely on the adversary to
observe the pseudo combat operation and interpret it as real (as opposed
to detecting the fake). Only then does it become the information we want
the adversary to have.

Direct information warfare: Conversely, if we use information
attack to create the pseudo combat wing in the adversary's store of
information, the result-deception-is precisely the same. But the means to
that result, never mind the resources, time, and uncertainty, are
dramatically different.

WHAT IS THE OTHER EDGE OF THE INFORMATION WARFARE SWORD?

The defensive side of information warfaresecurity measures aimed at
protecting information-prevents an adversary from conducting successful
information warfare against our information functions. Current security
measures such as OPSEC and COMSEC are typical means of preventing,
detecting, and subverting an adversary's indirect actions on our military
information functions. In contrast, security measures such as COMPUSEC
encompass preventing, detecting, and subverting direct information actions
on our information functions. Future security measures must evolve as
information technology advances. Consequently, new-measures will likely
take forms entirely different from today's security measures, rooted as
they are in previous security requirements. As the simple examples in
this paper illustrate, we must avoid falling victim to profound,
debilitating effects of direct information warfare.

WHY IS INFORMATION WARFARE IMPORTANT TO THE USAF?

Two reasons. First, because information warfare offers important means to
accomplish Air Force missions. Second, because the widespread integration
of information systems into Air Force operations makes our military
information functions a valuable target set.

Interdiction prevents or delays essential resources from reaching combat
units. One approach to interdiction is wrecking bridge spans using
laser-guided bombs. Alternatively, we might be able to alter the
adversary planners' information, falsely categorizing the bridges as
destroyed, causing the planners to reroute forces and supplies. Each
means performs interdiction; information attack offers the possibility of
achieving our goal while consuming fewer resources or without exposing our
assets to attack.

As an example emphasizing the need for robust defenses against information
warfare, imagine the chaos that would ensue should an adversary manage to
penetrate our time-phased force deployment database. Subtle changes in it
could be sufficient to bring our power projection capabilities to a near
standstill.

HOW SHOULD WE CHANGE AIR FORCE DOCTRINE TO ACCOMMODATE INFORMATION
WARFARE?

Presently, Air Force doctrine recognizes air warfare and space warfare.
However, the doctrine doesn't identify separate missions for air warfare
or space warfare. Instead,
both cut across all roles and missions. Similarly, information warfare
cannot be pigeonholed as a single mission. To do so would fail to
completely integrate information warfare into Air Force doctrine.

Recall that missions are operational tasks performed to achieve military
objectives. Air warfare is a means, defined by the environment, to
execute those missions. There are three objectives of air warfare:

control the air while protecting our forces from enemy
action,

exploit control of the air to employ forces against the enemy,
and,

enhance our overall force effectiveness.

In our doctrine, the objectives of control, exploit, and enhance
translate into the roles of aerospace control, force application,
and force enhancement.

In many respects, one can consider information as a realm, just as land,
sea, air, and space are realms (16)
information has its own characteristics of motion, mass, and topography,
just as air, space, sea, and land
have their own distinct characteristics (17). There are strong conceptual
parallels
between conceiving of air
and information as realms. Before the Wright brothers, air, while it
obviously existed, was not a realm
suitable for practical, widespread military operations. Similarly,
information existed before the
Information Age. But the Information Age changed the information realm's
characteristics so that
widespread military operations within it became practical.

Information warfare, like air warfare, is the means defined by the
environment to execute military missions. There are three objectives of
information warfare:

control the information realm so we can exploit it while
protecting our own military information functions from enemy action,

exploit control of information to employ information warfare
against the enemy, and,

The first objective of information warfare, to control the
realm so we can exploit it while protecting our own military information
functions from enemy action, contributes significantly to controlling the
combat environment. Presently, Air Force doctrine recognizes two missions
to control the combat environment: counterair and counterspace.
Counterair comprises missions whose objectives are control of the air;
counterspace comprises those missions whose objectives are control of
space. Clarity and consistency require we term those activities dedicated
to controlling information as counterinformation.

Further, counterinformation, like counterair and counterspace, has both
offensive and defensive aspects. Offensive counterinformation enables us
to use the information realm and impedes the adversary's use of the realm.
Typical means include physical attack, military deception, psychological
operations, electronic warfare, and information attack. Defensive
counterinformation includes both active and passive actions to protect
ourselves from the adversary's information warfare actions. Defensive
counterinformation is accomplished, for instance, through physical
defense, physical security, hardening, OPSEC, COMSEC, COMPUSEC, and
counterintelligence.

Successful aerospace control enables us to use the air and space realms
without suffering substantial losses, and inflict substantial losses on
the enemy's use of those realms. Counterinformation, working with
counterair and counterspace, seeks to create such an environment.

The second objective of information warfare is to exploit
our control of information. In air warfare's force application role, the
missions of strategic attack, interdiction, and close air support exploit
air control. Similarly, information warfare might also be used to achieve
the same ends. We have already cited an example of how information
warfare can perform interdiction. It can also perform strategic attack:

Suppose we want to limit the enemy's long-term mobility by restricting his
POL resupply. We first identify his refineries as the most suitable
target to achieve this goal. Through research we further identify the
specific refineries comprising most of his production capacity. For each
refinery, we find there is one critical cracking tower. We mount a strike
and, with admirable economy of force, put the refineries out of operation
by destroying just those towers, while leaving everything else untouched.
This is a classic example of strategic attack.

Same situation. Like all modern refineries, these have extensive
automated control systems. These extensive information functions offer a
potential target for information warfare. Early in the conflict we
performed an offensive counterinformation mission by penetrating and
characterizing the refinery's automated control system. In the process,
we uncovered several vulnerable information dependencies, giving us the
means of affecting the refineries' operations at a time of our choosing.
Later in the conflict, combined with interdiction and ground maneuvers, we
choose to exploit one of the vulnerabilities. We have just disabled their
refineries. This, too, is a classic example of strategic attack.

Information technology is already tightly woven with our military
operations, providing heretofore
unimaginable amounts of information. Exploiting this information has provided us striking
capabilities;
relying on it inevitably creates potentially crippling vulnerabilities. This, coupled with
advances in the
ability -to both locate and destroy command and control (C2) nodes makes C2, more than ever,
a lucrative
target set. History has shown successful militaries can achieve striking success through
paralyzing the
enemy's ability to exercise command and control. Airmen have always considered this an
important
objective and expended much effort against C2 (18). For
these reasons, the efforts to disrupt and destroy the
adversary's command and control elements have prompted us to identify a separate mission
under force
application.

C2 Attack:any action against any element of the enemy's command and control
system.

The third objective of information warfare is to develop information functions to
enhance total force effectiveness. Previously we described military information
functions as supporting the employment of military forces. Our current doctrine does not
include such a mission. To fill that void, we will include information operations under
force enhancement. Some examples of information operations are: surveillance,
reconnaissance, command and control, communications, combat identification, intelligence,
precision navigation, and weather. The distinguishing characteristic of the information
operations mission is that it deals primarily with information as both its resource and
product.

Information Operations:any action involving the acquisition, transmission,
storage, or transformation of information that enhances the employment of military forces.

Since we require relevant, accurate, and timely information for everything we do,
information operations support the conduct of missions across all four roles', from
aerospace control to force support. Information operations provide commanders the ability
to observe the battlespace, analyze events, and direct forces. information operations
provide logisticians the ability to know what is in inventory, and where it is needed.
Information operations provide the flight lead the ability to know where the target is, its
defenses, and select the most appropriate weapon.

In sum, information warfare cuts across all Air Force roles and missions. It is another
means to conduct our traditional missions. However, there are three additional
operational tasks that information warfare enables us to execute which are not suitably
addressed by our current doctrine: counterinformation, C2 Attack, and information
operations. Similarly, we elected to delete two missions no longer relevant under regrouped
missions: electronic combat, previously under force enhancement, is now subsumed by
information warfare; surveillance and reconnaissance are now considered instances of
information operations. However, this list is by no means exhaustive. As this paper's
title conveys, the ideas contained herein provide the cornerstones, not the entire building.
Invariably, as the Air Force fully accommodates the information technology revolution,
additional operational tasks may arise which will in turn warrant adding or removing
missions. To the extent these cornerstones continue to provide a valid litmus test for
information warfare, all new missions need to meet and pass it.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFORMATION WARFARE AND COMMAND & CONTROL WARFARE?

The focus of information warfare is any information function, whether it is C2, a
refinery's control system, or a telephone switching station. C2 represents only part of the
universe of military information functions. The Joint Staff defines command and control:

Command and Control:the exercise of authority and direction by a properly
designated commander over assigned forces in the accomplishment of the mission. [joint Pub
1-021

Command and control warfare (C2W) only addresses activities directed against the adversary's
ability to direct the disposition and employment of forces, or those which protect the
friendly commander's ability to do so. As we have illustrated, information warfare not only
attacks the C2 process, but it also attacks the enemy's combat power itself. Conversely, by
definition, C2W is not associated with reducing or nullifying the ability or desire of
combat units to execute their orders. Tactical psychological operations and electronic
countermeasures self-protection hinder the ability of units to execute orders. But they in
no way affect commanders' ability to issue orders to those units, nor their ability to
receive those orders.

Although extraordinarily important, the JCS's policy of Command and Control Warfare is only
a particular application of information warfare. For the military to concentrate only on
C2W would be ignoring other legitimate target sets. Therefore, information warfare, and its
attendant organizing, training, and equipping issues, is essential to fully effective C2W.

IS INFORMATION WARFARE IMPORTANT ONLY TO THE AIR FORCE?

We have established that information warfare is important to the Air Force for two reasons.
First, since our
military information functions present a valuable target set, we must make commensurate
defensive efforts.
Second, as the examples in this paper show, information warfare is a potential means to
achieve typical
Air Force ends: strategic attack, interdiction, etc. More fundamentally, the Air Force
already does
information warfare through such systems as the EF-111 and Compass Call.

But in a broader sense, information warfare might be a means to conduct any mission the
services already conduct - and the services are best positioned to choose the best means for
their ends. Each service has its own unique operational demands. After all, the Army is
best qualified to decide which means are best suited for pursuing the goals the joint Force
Commander apportions to the Army.

As a result of its service-unique expertise, its own OODA loop requirements, logistics,
etc., each service has information warfare concerns. In developing the doctrinal constructs
in this paper, we used airpower terminology and examples. That is our background, those are
the terms and the environment with which we are familiar. But the argument we present is
not dependent on terminology. Replacing Air Force terms with Army or Navy terms would
leave the conclusions unchanged.

CONCLUSION

The information revolution, startlingly fast as it is, shows no signs of slowing. As the
Air Force becomes more technologically sophisticated, it becomes more technologically
dependent. We need to use that technological sophistication to avail ourselves of all the
opportunities that information, as a target, presents. We also need to be aware that our
technical dependencies represent potentially crippling vulnerabilities. Sophisticated,
robust, multi-layered defenses for our military information functions may well be what
separates us from joining the sorry league of military failures.

Information, combined with modern information functions, has distinct characteristics that
warrant it being considered a realm, just as land, sea, air, .and space are realms.
Information warfare does not fill a discrete place in Air Force doctrine. just like air
warfare, information warfare can be part of many AFM 1 -1 missions. just as when space
warfare was integrated into Air Force doctrine, viewing information as a realm now leads us
to add several missions:

Counterinformation:controlling the information realm.

C2 Attack: any action against the enemy's command and control system.

Information Operations: any action involving the acquisition, transmission,
storage, or transformation of information that enhances the employment of military forces.

Since World War 1, airmen have had to control the air environment effectively to employ
airpower. What is more, air and space superiority are virtually a sine qua non for
employing ground and naval forces. Information is the next realm we must control to operate
effectively and with the greatest economy of force.

At the outset we stated the competition for information is as old as man's first conflict.
It involves increasing and protecting our own store of information while limiting and
penetrating the adversary's. The recent explosion in information technologies is prompting
the current discussion in and outside government on the topic of information warfare -
targeting the enemy's information functions, while protecting ours, with the intent of
degrading his will or capability to fight.

For airmen, controlling the combat environment is job One. With the advances in information
technology,
airmen must pursue information superiority just as they do air and space superiority. Only
with these
realms under our control can we effectively employ all our combat assets. Military
information functions are
essential to our combat operations-they are a tool for achieving the Joint Force Commander's
campaign
objectives. Targeting the enemy's information functions keeps him from achieving his.

In this paper we have laid out information warfare's doctrinal foundation. Our goal is to
provide a sound and widely accepted basis from which we can adapt Air Force doctrine to the
Information Age. The ultimate aim? Incorporating information warfare into the way the Air
Force organizes, trains, equips, and employs.

DEFINITIONS

C2 Attack: Any action against any element of the enemy's command and control
system.

Command and Control:The exercise of authority and direction by a properly
designated commander over assigned forces in the accomplishment of the mission.

Indirect Information Warfare:Changing the adversary's information by creating
phenomena that the adversary must then observe and analyze.

Information: Data and instructions.

Information Attack:Directly corrupting information without visibly changing the
physical entity within which it resides.

Information Function: Any activity involving the acquisition, transmission,
storage, or transformation of information.

Information Operations: Any action involving the acquisition, transmission,
storage, or transformation of information that enhances the employment of military forces.

Information Warfare: Any action to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy the enemy's
information and its functions; protecting ourselves against those actions; and exploiting
our own military information functions.

Military Information Function: Any information function supporting and enhancing
the employment of military forces.